Oregon Beer News, 03/29/2012

Here’s the Oregon beer news for Thursday the 29th of March. As usual I’ll be periodically updating this post with new items throughout the day, so if you have something to share please contact me and I’ll get it updated. And check back often!

Cascade Brewing (Portland) is releasing their 2011 bottled edition of The Vine today starting at 4:30pm at the Barrel House: “The Vine is a blend of blond ales that were aged in oak barrels for up to 12 months before aging on fresh pressed grapes for an additional three months. Bottles sell for $17 and are available at the Barrel House, the Raccoon Lodge and online.” It’s 9.73% abv and will sell for $6 a glass, and in addition the blenders will be on hand to answer questions, and they will also have one keg each of vintage 2009 and 2010 The Vine available for a vertical tasting. Oh, and food specials too: “The Vine Pork Medallion, a pork medallion glazed with The Vine and seared in an herbed compound butter, served with asparagus orzo pasta ($5.50); and an Oregon Bay Shrimp Cocktail, featuring Oregon bay shrimp atop Barrel House cocktail sauce with a float of The Vine, served with lemon ($5.50).” Cascade Barrel House is the place to be tonight!

What Would Fred Drink? That’s right, the popular Portland-based FredFest is coming up in just over a month on May 13 and tickets are going on sale today! I’ll have a full post about FredFest soon, but the short version: “What started as a small surprise 80th birthday party for world-renowned beer writer Fred Eckhardt is coming back around in its seventh year as one of the most anticipated beer events of the year. Attendees will be treated not only to a rare assortment of hand-selected beers, but also light fare cooked in beer and a birthday cake — complete with a round of “Happy Birthday” — just for Fred. Cheeses, chocolate, candy and even cereal will be offered in abundance so attendees can experience some of Fred’s famed beer-and-food pairings.” Tickets are $60 in advance (though Lisa has them listed at $65) and they are extremely limited—but this Fest is a a true beer geek’s type of event. (via Lisa Morrison)

The Green Dragon (Portland) has a meet the brewer event tonight featuring Lucky Lab brewer Ben Flerchinger, from 6 to 11pm. I haven’t seen mention specifically but I imagine they will have some special Lucky Lab brews on tap too.

10 Barrel (Bend) is up at North 45 Pub in Portland tonight for their weekly BrewHog event (basically it “features a guest brewery with beer samples on our patio and $3 pint specials all night”) from 5 to 8pm. They’ll be sampling three of their beers (didn’t list which ones) and their ISA (India Session Ale) will be the $3 pint special.

And 10 Barrel also posted on Facebook some geek-worthy brewing notes about the reformulation of their Apocalypse IPA. From brewer Jimmy Seifrit: “We took the chance to redesign our flagship beer with the opening of new brewing facility. The brew team sat down and took a fresh new look at the beer. The conclusion was to make our IPA all about the hops with no distractions from anything else. With that in mind we paired down the malt bill to highlight the hops; removed the biscuit and added Carapils to enhance the head on the beer with nominal flavor impact. The base hops of Bravo, Amarillo, Cascade, Northern Brewer, and Centennial are the same but the dry hop of Zeus, Northern Brewer, Cascade, and Centennial have be increased by a 100%. On top of his they are let to reside for a longer time at warm temperatures for more impact. The depth of the hop flavor is built on the use of leaf and pellet hops. Couple this with our new state of the art JVNW brew system that creates a more refined, dynamic beer.”